Stybar, Compton Win World Cup Cross Opener

Zdenek Stybar and Katie Compton win in the opening round of the Cyclocross World Cup in Aigle, Switzerland.

Source: UCI Press Release

The 2010-2011 UCI Cyclocross World Cup got underway on Sunday afternoon around UCI headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, with solo victories for World Champion Zdenek Stybar (Telenet-Fidea) in the Elite Men's race and Katherine Compton (USA) in the Women's race.

Women's Race

The Dutch got off to a good start with Sanne van Paassen and Daphny van den Brand taking an early lead. Van Paassen dropped away from the front after a crash, and one lap later, Van den Brand had a gap of six seconds over Hanka Kupfernagel (Germany) and 10 seconds over Katherine Compton (USA) and Sanne Cant (Belgium).

Compton bridged up to Van den Brand during the second lap and kept her momentum to go clear. The American rider left Van den Brand behind and clocked the fastest lap of the race. Compton continued her solo attack to grab her seventh victory in a World Cup race.

Van den Brand finished half-a-minute later to take second place. A few seconds later Katerina Nash (Czech Republic) won the sprint for third in front of Van Paassen. Americans Amy Dombroski and Sue Butler finished in 19th and 20th place, respectively.

Although Compton currently leads the World Cup, she's sitting out of next week's race to head back to the United States to train, with hopes to avoid injuries that have caused problems in previous seasons.

Men's Race

Zdenek Stybar takes the World Cup lead at the first race of the season.

Stybar, winner of last year's World Cup, took the initiative throughout the men’s race. Early on, the 24-year-old Czech was helped by Belgian Champion Sven Nys (Landbouwkrediet). Despite their efforts, there was still an 11-man leader's group at the half-way point. After seven laps, the World Champion noticed there was a minor gap behind him and he stepped on the gas. The obstacles on the fast, technical course were seemingly no problem for Stybar, who was one of the multiple riders to hop the hurdles on his bike but one of the few to ride through the entirety of the long sand section.

Stybar opened up about 20 seconds on a first chasing group with the Belgian riders Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus), Dieter Vanthourenhout (BKCP-Powerplus) and Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb-Revor). With two laps to go, Albert pulled out all the stops — clocking the fastest lap of the day — and the former World Champion left his rivals behind.

Stybar was still enjoying a comfortable advantage over Albert and he focused on making it safely to the finish line during the last lap. Albert easily held on for second place while Kevin Pauwels (Telenet-Fidea) joined his team-mate Stybar on the podium with two impressive last laps, in which he overtook Vantornout and Vanthourenhout.

Americans Jonathan Page and Jeremy Powers finished in 19th and 20th.

Next week the second round of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup will take place in Plzen, Czech Republic.